


What the Water Gave Me

by Haro



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Drama, Fish out of Water, Found Family, Happy Ending, Historical References, Humor, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Long-Haired Katsuki Yuuri, M/M, Romance, Supernatural Elements, Thai Mythology and Folklore
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-05
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-23 16:25:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,814
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16162562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haro/pseuds/Haro
Summary: Yuuri is a half youkai from Edo era Japan. Trapped under a misplaced curse, he awakens in the modern era and meets Victor, a photojournalist living in Tokyo. With nowhere to go and no clue what’s going on, Yuuri is taken in by Victor.As Yuuri, for his own reasons, tries to distance himself from his past, it keeps popping up in unexpected; sometimes pleasant, sometimes unpleasant ways. Can Yuuri reconcile his past so he can embrace his future with Victor?Features Phichit as Yuuri’s best friend, a kinnon, Minako as a resourceful kitsune, and Chris as Victor’s friend from work, who is happy Victor found someone, but didn’t exactly expect it to be a cute boy with dragon antlers.





	What the Water Gave Me

**Author's Note:**

> This story is being done for the Live & Love YOI bang. It is completed and will be updated weekly. 
> 
> My artist for this story was the amazing [dyeingdoll](https://dyeingdoll.tumblr.com/). You can go see her art for the story **[here](https://dyeingdoll.tumblr.com/post/178793094812/llybb-art-post-for-this-i-collaborated-with)**. I will be embedding the art at the relevant scenes too.
> 
> There are footnotes at the end of the chapter. Enjoy!

The straw of Yuuri’s sandals pounded against the dirt road, dust rising beneath his feet as he ran. He careened around a corner, nearly colliding with the shoji of a teahouse, and then frowned when he realized he’d run into one of the city’s canals. He could hear his pursuer getting closer, their heavy footfalls growing louder, and he looked between the canal and the dirt road.

If he could cross the canal, he would gain an advantage, but there wasn’t a bridge nearby.

Yuuri took a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment, gathering his bearings and whispering self-encouragement. He’d never attempted to leap across a canal before, but he was stronger than a normal person, wasn’t he? And water, water had always been his friend, hadn’t it? Making up his mind, Yuuri kneeled into a lunge, then ran forward and leapt.

He heard a gunshot right as he took to the air, and it missed him. He smiled.

He was lucky it was the middle of the night. No one was out on the streets or in the canals, and that was better for Yuuri, because the last thing he wanted was a spectacle.

He was airborne, and he’d managed to leap so much higher than he’d anticipated.  He was buoyed by the wind and he glanced below him, his heart hammering in his ears as he realized he was at least two _jō_ above the canal _._ Adrenaline pumped through him and Yuuri’s smile grew. He’d never really tested his strength before, preferring to pretend there was nothing unusual about him instead, but at the moment, he thought that maybe, he should change that.

The few moments in the air were exhilarating, and he felt as if he were a bird set free. His thin, cotton kosode billowed, causing the cool air to tickle his chest, stomach, and back, and he thought, _I could stay here_.

But the fact that he could soar like so was the very reason he was on the run, wasn’t it? Yuuri had come to Edo with little in the way of concrete goals; just a pouch of coins and scrip, and well wishes from his few friends back home. But although he didn’t know exactly what he had in mind to do in Edo, he knew it wasn’t this.

Yuuri didn’t even know his father, and yet here he was, answering for his crimes. He cursed the conspicuous features that caused him to be recognized as his father’s son. At home in Hasetsu, they’d been the cause of both wariness and worship, but here, in Edo, where there was so much unusual, he’d not gotten more than stares and whispers.

Until now. Yuuri had just been about to bed down for the night, booking a room at the cheapest inn he could find, when this man had spotted him. He looked old, but his age belied fitness and strength, and Yuuri wondered if he had been a samurai in his youth. Surely, he must have, because he was giving Yuuri serious trouble. He hadn’t been able to outrun him yet.

“Are you Yuuri, son of Inahi?” had been his only warning before the man had moved to attack him, as if Yuuri’s eyes widening in surprise was enough of a confirmation for him.

Who else could he be though? Yuuri knew that if one were looking for the son of Inahi, upon seeing him, there was no question as to his identity.

It was the first time Yuuri had ever seen a matchlock rifle in person, but he knew enough to recognize what it was, and he knew better than to risk being shot by one.

So he ran, and his attacker pursued with all his strength. He had only fired his rifle once, and Yuuri knew it must have been because he hadn’t gotten good enough shots and didn’t want to risk losing Yuuri while he was reloading. All Yuuri had to do was keep ahead of him in that case, right? He’d get tired eventually, because if Yuuri knew one thing about himself, it’s that his stamina was better than most.

What he didn’t know, he was just now realizing, was how to land after leaping so high into the air. He’d cleared the canal, that much was easy to see. But the problem was that he’d more than cleared it, and Yuuri was bracing himself to land on a hard-stone path in front of a shrine instead of the dirt road he’d been anticipating.

This was going to be messy, and Yuuri braced himself, cursing himself inwardly for getting cocky, being too excited about the feel of the breeze in his hair and the fact that all the city’s lantern lights were below him, to think about coming back down to earth.

His feet skidded first, but Yuuri thought, at least he’d managed to land on them. He could feel the rough stone under them and knew the straw of his shoes had busted with the impact and left him half barefoot. He tried his best to maintain his balance, but the velocity of his fall and the slick blood on his now exposed feet prevented that, and he only slid to a complete stop when he fell over, the back of his head making contact with a heavy old stone toro lantern. He winced and screamed in pain, and the impact was such that he blacked out.

When he came to, his mind was hazy and foggy, and his limbs felt like they were each as heavy as his entire body. He couldn’t move, and he seized up, afraid and frantic and breathing wildly and irregularly.

The back of his head was wet, and he knew it must have been blood from hitting the stone toro, and his heartbeat sped up and he squeezed his eyes closed to prevent himself from crying. It didn’t work, they welled up anyway.

He could barely make out the footsteps over the sound of his heart and his breathing, and he could only just make out his words. “The very son of the mighty Inahi, sniveling and crying before an old man.” He laughed cruelly. “Well, I guess that makes sense, as you are only half youkai. But you bear his mark nonetheless, which is more than any of his other halfling children do…”

“I’m not… I’m not…” Yuuri managed, words heavy on his tongue as if his mouth were full of sand, “He won’t care if you kill me. If you want… revenge for something he did, do something else.”

“You refuse to take the burden of your father’s vengeance?” the older man asked. “What an ungrateful boy you are.”

Yuuri managed a weak snort. “He is father in name only.”

He still couldn’t open his eyes; the lids were far too heavy, and he was afraid. Afraid to see the man above him, who he knew could be pointing the rifle right at him, Yuuri’s life at his mercy.

He felt a press on his chest, and he knew, this was it. His end, in front of a shrine in Edo, in the middle of the night and far, far away from home.

“Foolish, foolish child!” Yuuri heard, and it was the last thing he heard, and he thought, the last thing he’d ever hear.

There was a shot of heat against his chest, as if lightning had come down to earth and spidered its mighty fingers across his body, sizzling and scorching and Yuuri thought he was _boiling_ from the inside out. He tried to breathe, but his throat was burning, like the air itself had been ripped from his lungs.

And then, everything went black, and Yuuri Katsuki knew no more.

* * *

 

Victor Nikiforov was content. He had a career that he legitimately enjoyed, he had an adorable dog, he had a nice, clean and stylishly minimalistic apartment, and he even had a friend. He’d been able to leave behind his hometown and move to another country and had managed to find a job in the field he’d desired to, with a salary that left him financially stable. He was fluent in three languages. He was smart. He was handsome.

Realistically, Victor knew that he should want for nothing. He’d moved to Japan four years before, taking up a job with an international publication as a photojournalist, and he was successful. He was good at what he did. He loved Tokyo, the city he’d come to call home. He loved his dog and his job and his friend. He loved taking his camera out into the city, even when he wasn’t working, and chronicling what he discovered. It was all so very fascinating; the people, the places, the stories.

Maybe it was that he wanted; a story of his own.  He made a living telling stories after all. He’d traveled the world in the last several years; gone to more countries than he even knew existed when he was a small child living in St. Petersburg and his mother had given him his first camera. Perhaps Victor wished for a story worth telling, one that would intrigue and enrapture audiences the way that his photos could.

Or maybe, Victor argued inwardly, he was thinking far too much about this. Maybe he just wanted a boyfriend.

Chris was trying, that much was for sure. On the days that Victor was in the office, usually to meet with the editor, Chris would harangue him about how he needed to get out more, take in the gay scene in the city. Every time Chris discovered a new place in Shinjuku he liked, he’d text Victor with the name and address, hoping the other man would show up.

“You need to get laid,” Chris would say far more often than Victor thought he needed to hear it.

“You go to bars all the time and don’t have a boyfriend,” Victor countered.

“That does not mean I don’t get laid.”

Victor couldn’t argue with that.

Nonetheless, he didn’t want to go to Shinjuku at night, or frankly, anywhere Chris suggested for spicing up his (non-existent) love life. Perhaps Victor was just a romantic at heart, but when he met the one, he thought, he should meet him somewhere he actually wanted to be. That way they would have something in common from the beginning, right?

Maybe Victor didn’t need a boyfriend after all. Maybe he just needed another dog.

He laughed to himself and shook his head. The sun was starting to set on Tokyo, and Victor was grateful, because it had been devastatingly hot recently, and only the reprieve of night made it at all bearable. Besides, contrary to Chris’s belief, Victor did like to go out in the evening. He just… didn’t go where Chris wanted him to go.

Victor loved to explore the city by twilight, discover places, old and new, and today, he was looking at shrines. He’d taken the rail between two of them, and both were ones he’d never been to. There were over 1,400 shrines in Tokyo alone, the internet had informed him, and he hadn’t even scratched the surface of all of them.

The shrine he was visiting now had barely a whisper of info about it on the internet, and when he reached it, Victor could understand why. It was small and not well cared for, consisting of a decrepit wood building and a small cobbled stone path leading up to it. There were a few stray weather worn statues, and there was foliage everywhere, giving the shrine a wild, untamed appearance, despite it being in the middle of the city. Had this shrine ever been grand or beautiful? Had it ever been lacquered in bright paint with gold polished bells and intricate stone statues? Victor didn’t know, but he was fascinated by its beleaguered appearance, by the fact that it seemed to be half swallowed by the green of the earth, by its strange isolation amid such an urban sprawl.

He took twice as many pictures at this shrine, in just the first few minutes he was there, than he’d taken at the previous shrine, which had been large, beautiful, and well taken care of. But Victor knew a story when he saw one, and this shrine was rich with them. He may never be able to find them out, but the possibilities alone were exciting.

He photographed birds, colorful little finches that rested on the decaying wood of the shrine and took turns catching caterpillars and beetles from the surrounding trees and bushes to eat. He found, in the vibrant green overgrowth, butterflies with their wings folded, resting down for the evening. On a small, weathered statue of a dragon, a pair of squirrels were curled up together. There was a smattering of graffiti on one corner of the wall, and Victor photographed that too, although he wondered why ‘Natsuki’ felt himself so important that he needed to vandalize a shrine with his name.

He sat on the bottom stair of the shrine, breathing in the late summer air and enjoying the slight breeze that had come with the setting of the sun. It was still light out, but with the sun down, he didn’t feel as if he were baking any longer.

There was a peace to this shrine, and the buzzing in his mind, the yearning he felt so often for… he didn’t know what, left him for a moment as he enjoyed it.

When he stood up to leave, he almost didn’t notice the small object he smacked his foot against. It was buried in the ground, right at the edge of the stone path; a tiny stone toro lantern, almost completely hidden by ferns that tendrilled around it and over the steps of the shrine. It was worn and green with moss, and the umbrella of it was chipped and half eroded away. He cursed to himself inwardly at his foolishness in hitting it with his foot, knowing that such old objects could be delicate, and he leaned down to check and make sure he hadn’t damaged it.

Nothing on the toro looked broken, just worn and weathered, as he already knew it was. But… there was something unusual about it. He squatted down all the way to the ground and squinted.

It was an ofuda, half hanging off the base of the toro. It was old, to the point that the kanji on it was too washed-out to read, leaving only a few stray brush strokes of faded black on the paper.  Victor wondered how an old piece of rice starched paper, exposed to the elements for so long, was still in one piece, but more importantly, he was certain he must have knocked the talisman loose when he kicked the toro.

Victor took a deep breath. If he wasn’t careful he could damage the ofuda further, and he had far too much respect for these sacred places to do such a thing. He wiped his hands on his pants, making sure they were free of any sweat, and steadied his fingers before reaching forward to press the ward back on.

Instead, it came off entirely in his hand.

He thought, at first, that he must have imagined the flash of brilliant light that occurred immediately after this. It was bright, so bright, like the flashes of dozens of cameras in his eyes, but instead of the heat of a camera flash, it felt like a rush of cool air and it was more blue than white.

He hoped that he imagined the crack of stone, as the toro in front of him split in half, and he was certain, as absurd as it seemed, the blue light was coming from it. Destruction of property had not been in his plans for the day, and he certainly did not want it to be either.

But what he definitely did not imagine was what happened when the light died down. He could not have imagined that on the lush green ground, between the cracked halves of the toro, there now lay a young man.

His eyes were closed, long dark lashes flush against round cheeks. He could not have been older than Victor, and Victor thought, he may have been a few years younger than him too. His clothing looked old, worn and very traditional. There was an overcoat in a shade of deep blue, a jacket underneath in a lighter blue, and a pair of what looked like leggings with black stirrups covering his bottom half. His shoes, Victor noticed, were busted and crusted over with what looked like dried blood.

But although all of that was strange, nothing compared to what rested above the man’s admittedly, rather pretty face. On top of his head, nestled in thick dark hair that was pulled back in a ponytail, were a pair of what Victor could only describe as antlers.

Or perhaps horns? No, antlers was better. They weren’t quite like the antlers of a deer though, no velvet covered them, and they were not as large as what a male deer would have. They were deep brown, almost a russet in color, and they angled back, starting out as a single prong, then forking into two near the end of them.

Dragon. He thought, recalling the small statue that he’d seen upon entrance to the shrine. They looked like the antlers of a Japanese dragon.

And they were on the head of a man, who had appeared to him in a burst of blue light, seemingly from… inside the toro lantern?

Victor had definitely been looking for stories, but this was beyond anything he had expected.

There was a rustle of movement, and Victor started, looking back to the young man beneath him and gasping as his eyes slid open. They were reddish brown, a similar color to the antlers, and… oh god, he was…

Beautiful. The most beautiful man Victor had ever seen, he was sure of it. Before he had been pretty, but with his eyes open and the color returning to his cheeks, as if he were coming back to life, Victor found himself speechless.

The man, though could he be merely a man with a face like that, antlers notwithstanding, parted his lips for a moment, and then squinted in confusion.

“Ugh, I thought I’d died. Who are you?”

“Victor,” he replied dumbly, “and if you’re dead, so am I.”

He let out a brief laugh, and it was dry, like he hadn’t used his voice forever. “You’re the first Dutch man I’ve ever seen.”

Victor merely blinked, blue eyes wide. “I’m ah--- I’m Russian? What makes you think I’m Dutch?”

“Your clothes are strange,” Yuuri replied, “but you can’t fool me. Unless the emperor opened the country while I was unconscious, you’ve got to be from the Netherlands.”

Victor’s jaw dropped, and he thought several flies may have flown into it for how wide it was. “The emperor what?” He snapped his mouth shut and gulped, his heart hammering at how wild and impossible everything around him was at the moment. If this was a prank, it was far beyond the ability of anyone Victor knew. “What’s your name… and what year is it?”

Yuuri gave him a quizzical look and cocked his head to the side, pushing himself up into a sitting position as he did so. Even his movements were beautiful, Victor thought.

“What do you mean? It’s Bunka thirteen, and my name is Katsuki Yuuri.”  

Victor’s hands shook, and if possible, his heart raced even faster. This was… impossible. “Look around you, Katsuki-san,” he began, and his throat was dry, each word like a lump he had to swallow to push out, “it’s 2018, and my name is Victor Nikiforov.”

The man, Yuuri, just crinkled his nose and blinked, wide eyes owlish, in bewilderment. “I don’t understand anything you just said, Victor-san.”

Victor shook his head. “Of course you wouldn’t, would you?” He bit his lip in thought. He’d taken Japanese history in college and had learned more since he’d made the country his home, but he didn’t know the exact year Yuuri had mentioned. He had a notion that specific era was around the early 1800s, give or take a few years, and of course, it was before the country had been opened to the west, judging by Yuuri’s statements. “It’s um, 2018,” he said. “Japan uses a different calendar now, and the year you say you’re from was at least two hundred years ago.”

He felt absurd even saying this, but he had a cute boy with antlers in front of him who had appeared in a flash of light from an old stone sculpture, so it’s not as if the situation didn’t warrant absurdity.

Yuuri pressed his hand over his chest, and Victor noticed then that his nails looked much sharper than human nails; tougher too, more like small claws than nails. “I’m….” he took several deep breaths, attempting to calm himself, “I was shot.” He glanced down to his chest, to his clothes, which were unblemished by any damage that could have come from a gunshot. “Or at least… I thought I was.”

“There was an ofuda,” Victor said. “I accidentally pulled it off, and there was a flash of light and… the toro split in half and you appeared.”

“Can I see the ofuda?” Yuuri asked.

He had dropped it on the ground next to him in shock at Yuuri’s appearance, and he picked it up carefully, mindful of the delicate paper, and handed it to him.

There was a spark when it came into contact with Yuuri’s hands, and that spark grew to a blue flame within half a moment, and Yuuri shouted as he pulled away, clutching his fingers gingerly to his chest.

Victor threw the ofuda down and reached forward, but Yuuri pulled back further, away from Victor’s touch. “Shit! What happened!?”

He winced. “It burned me. I’m okay. It just hurts a little bit.” Victor looked doubtful but allowed him to continue. “I think I was sealed.”

“Sealed?”

“This man who attacked me, he had a gun and I thought he was going to shoot me.” Yuuri rubbed the back of his hand and frowned. “I couldn’t see him when he did it, but I felt so much pain I assumed he’d shot me…”

“And that’s why you thought you were dead.”  

Yuuri nodded, now rubbing the fresh burn on the tips of his fingers. “But I’m not, and I clearly haven’t been shot. With the ofuda and everything else, plus the way it reacted when I touched it, it’s obvious what happened.”

“Obvious?” Victor let out a short laugh. “Do you encounter things like this every day, because this is very new to me.”

Yuuri furrowed his brows and frowned. “Well this is the first time I’ve been sealed but…”

“Katsuki-san,” Victor interrupted, “I’m sure you’re aware of this, but in addition to the fact that you just magically appeared in front of me in a burst of light, you have antlers.”

Yuuri stopped rubbing his hand and reached up to the top of his head, touching the base of one of his antlers and shrugging. “Yes? I know it’s very uncommon, but surely you’ve seen stranger things.”

Victor shook his head vigorously in the negative. “It’s not just uncommon. I thought it didn’t exist. None of this,” he gestured to the split stone toro, and then to the man sitting in front of him. “Magic or sealing or…” he frowned and looked genuinely apologetic, “I’m sorry, but… what are you?”

“I’m a hanyou,” Yuuri explained. “Half youkai. My father was a wani, and my mother was a human woman.”

“A dragon?” Victor managed, his blue eyes wide.

“A sea dragon. That’s what a wani is.”

“You’re half _dragon_?” Victor’s eyes widened even further, his eyebrows high onto his forehead.

Yuuri let out a small, low chuckle at that. “In a manner of speaking, yes.”

Victor smiled, wide and brilliant, and he leaned forward, his hands pressed to his knees. “That’s amazing.”

“You think so?” Yuuri asked, voice quiet and a pink flush creeping across his cheeks.

Yes, he thought so. Dragons were real, and they were apparently, in Yuuri’s case, dazzlingly handsome. Instead of saying this though, Victor just nodded.

“Why were you sealed?” The thought that perhaps Yuuri had done something awful to warrant it, crossed his mind, and he hoped it wasn’t so.

Yuuri lowered his head and dangled his hands between his knees. “This man, he had a grudge against my father, and he decided to take his revenge by going after me.”

“A grudge?”

“I don’t even know what it was about.” Yuuri shrugged. “But it was stupid of him, because I’ve never even met my father. He doesn’t know or care anything about me.”

“I’m sorry…” Victor managed. He was sympathetic, but a part of him was also relieved because he really didn’t want the young man with the soft brown eyes and the beautiful face to be threatening in nature. “That’s terribly unfair.”

Yuuri just shrugged.

“It’s Nikiforov-san, by the way,” Victor said.

“What?”

“You called me Victor-san. In much of the west, we put our given names before our family name, so my given name is Victor and my family name is Nikiforov.”

Yuuri flushed, a pretty pink. “Oh. I apologize then.”

“It’s not a problem,” he replied. “You can actually just call me Victor, if you’d like. It’s not necessary to be more formal than that, where I’m from.”

Yuuri’s eyes grew wide at this, and his blush grew darker. “If that’s the case, you may call me Yuuri.”

“Yuuri,” and the way Victor drew out his name and rolled the r made Yuuri’s face grow even warmer. “It’s very nice to meet you, Yuuri.”

“You as well, Victor from Russia.” He smiled, and it was heart-stoppingly lovely, and Victor really, really needed to stop being so gay in this moment, with a man he’d just met, who happened to be half dragon and from two centuries before. But it was very, very difficult.

“I imagine this is a stupid question, but do you have anywhere to go?” he asked.

Yuuri patted a small pouch he carried on his person, strapped to his side. “I have money for inns. I was traveling when this happened. I’d just arrived in Edo the other day and…”

“It’s called Tokyo now,” Victor interrupted. “They ah, changed the name from Edo to Tokyo over a century ago.”

“O-oh…”

“And your money won’t work, because that has changed as well.” Victor frowned.

Yuuri groaned. “Are you serious?”

“Yes, I am.” He leaned forward and gently, carefully, placed his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders in a comforting gesture. “I’m sorry, Yuuri, but look up and look around you. Almost everything has changed.”

Slowly, Yuuri pushed himself to his knees and then stood up, and Victor would be remiss not to notice that his hands were visibly shaking as he did so. He looked around, eyes wide and fearful; above him, where he could see the gleam of skyscrapers, in front of and beside him, where he could see how overgrown the shrine had become, reclaimed by nature and looking, Victor assumed, very different from how Yuuri remembered.

There were so many sounds. Victor hadn’t ever thought about how noisy the city was; the moans and the screeches of cars, the chatter of the masses of people that walked Tokyo’s sidewalks, the creaks and the hums and the drips and the late summer cicadas _screaming_ over all of that, and most of that was new to Yuuri, wasn’t it?

The cacophony of sounds, light, and color that made up an early evening in Tokyo was normal to him, but if Yuuri really was from when he said he was, and Victor had no reason to believe he wasn’t, he must have been suffering the biggest shock of his life. For all that Victor thought what was happening to him was totally unreal, for Yuuri, who wasn’t just discovering that something new existed in the world he already knew, but who had awoken to an entirely new world, it must have been so much worse.

Yuuri must have been absolutely terrified.

In addition to his wide eyes, the press of his lips was tight, as if he was trying to stop them from quivering, and his chest heaved up and down, deep panicked breaths escaping through his mouth and nose, like he was gulping for air between the rise and fall of crashing waves.

The shaking of his hands intensified, and Victor, without thinking more on it, reached out to grab them, hoping his presence could ground him. “Yuuri,” he said, his tone calm but firm.

As if pulled out of a trance, Yuuri snapped to face him, his huge, lost brown eyes giving him the look of a deer in the headlights.

“I’m here. I know that doesn’t mean much but---”

But he was interrupted by a loud sob, choked out like it had been ripped from his very center, harsh and desperate, and Yuuri’s eyes welled up rapidly with tears, and he collapsed forward, landing on Victor’s shoulder and gripping the fabric of his shirt so tight, his knuckles almost white with the strain.

Victor hissed in pain. That would bruise later, but he suspected that Yuuri had just grabbed onto him because he was the first thing there, and that at the moment, he was more of a prop so he wouldn’t fall down than an actual comfort.

Tears were staining his shirt and Victor dared not push Yuuri away, but at the same time he was unsure of how to react.

Because of his position, Yuuri’s antlers were brushing against his cheek, and they were cool, but not cold, and textured, almost like a lightly distressed wood. His hair was soft, so soft and Victor was surprised, for he assumed that Yuuri didn’t exactly have the same resources for keeping his hair healthy that Victor did, but perhaps it was just natural.

He allowed himself to think about these things, but only for a moment, because there was still a man crying on him; more like bawling, if he was honest. He bit his lip and frowned, then carefully, as not to disturb him, moved his hands to rest gently on Yuuri’s back.

Yuuri started at this, as if remembering he was pressed against a real, living, breathing person. He looked up, and between the mistiness of his eyes and the redness of his nose from sniffling, Victor thought he may have been blushing.

“S-sorry,” he finally managed.

“It’s all right,” Victor said. “I’m not good with things like this though.”

Yuuri shook his head, and he loosened his grip on Victor’s shirt as he did so. “It’s not your job anyway. You don’t even know me and here I am---” Yuuri’s eyes widened as he stared at the upper corner of Victor’s shirt, and Victor followed his gaze.

“I ripped your top! Oh no I’m so, so sorry,” he exhaled deeply and pressed his hand to his chest, his heart hammering and Victor thought, he was about to have another panic attack. The poor man.

Indeed, where Yuuri had gripped the fabric of his shirt, there were several couple centimeter or so long tears, undoubtedly caused by his oddly sharp fingernails.

“Yuuri, it’s okay,” Victor replied with a shrug. “I have lots of shirts just like this.”

“These stupid claws,” Yuuri grimaced, staring down at his own hand in disdain. “I wish I could just---”

“Stop.” Victor grabbed his hands and held them still, then leaned down slightly, so he was eye to eye with the shorter man. Wide, startled, and still teary brown eyes met blue, and Yuuri frowned.

“But…”

“I don’t care about the shirt,” he reiterated. “Please stop freaking out about that.”

“I didn’t mean to---”

“I know,” he interrupted. “Can I ask you again, do you have any place to stay?”

Yuuri’s eyes welled up again and he shook his head in the negative.

Victor let out a heavy sigh. What choice did he have but to ask him to come home with him? He couldn’t leave the man out here, with no money, no knowledge of where he was or what to do, and in such a poor emotional state. He at least needed a place to crash for a day or two, and it’s not as if Victor had anyone else living with him, save his dog.

“Come back to my place with me,” Victor said. “The sooner we get you inside, the better. You need a place to relax and… take everything in.”

“I don’t have any way to pay you,” Yuuri argued. He was staring at his feet now, at the busted sandals that scarcely functioned as shoes any longer, and at the broken toro pieces he stood between.

Victor scratched his cheek. “It’s not a big deal.”

“But---”

“If you’re that worried about it, we can take those coins and that money of yours to an antique dealer. I’m sure you can get a lot of yen for it.”

“Yen is…money?”

“What the currency of Japan is called now, yes.” Victor gave him a smile that he hoped was reassuring. “But we don’t need to worry about that yet. It doesn’t cost me anything to have you sleep in my apartment.”

Yuuri nodded, though he still, Victor thought, looked guilty over the idea of accepting his invitation. Victor gave him a pat on the shoulder.

“Okay,” Yuuri finally said, and he offered up a small, but sweet smile, which had Victor feeling warm inside.

Victor smiled back, wide and buoyant. “That’s great.” He moved his hand to Yuuri’s upper back. “Now do you want to wait a little bit to calm down, or are you ready?”

Yuuri closed his eyes for a moment and took a calming breath. “I’m ready.”

Victor swung his camera bag back over his shoulders and pressed against Yuuri’s back, gesturing him forward.

“You might get some odd looks, but people will just think you’re in a costume of some sort, so don’t worry about it,” he explained. “I know this is going to be really overwhelming for you, so just stay with me.”

Yuuri nodded again, and Victor gave him an earnest but lopsided smile. “Maybe try to focus on me instead of everything around you? It’s the best advice I can think to give.” He paused. “We are… going to have to go on the metro since my home is too far to walk.”  

“Me-to-ro?”

“It’s a mode of transportation,” Victor gestured with his free hand, “you ah—it’s much faster than going on foot, and it’s run by a machine.”

Yuuri furrowed his brows in confusion but didn’t press for more information. “You’ll be there though?” he asked, and Victor noticed he was wiping his eyes free of tears with the sleeves of his top. His heart clenched.

“Yes,” Victor replied. “I don’t know how much I can do, but at the very least, I’ll stay by your side.”

Yuuri gave him a watery smile, and after a moment, his eyes hardened into something fierce and determined. “Thank you. Let’s go then.” He wrapped a hand around the strap of Victor’s camera bag, a lifeline to the other man so they wouldn’t get separated.

At that moment, with his eyes flashing with stubborn determination, wiped free of the tears he’d just shed, and his lips quirked up in a small, resolute smile, he looked so brave, and Victor thought, the most beautiful he’d yet seen him.

 

* * *

 

Victor was more than pleased to get back to his apartment as soon as they possibly could. Although Yuuri hadn’t had an outright meltdown again, like he had earlier, he was clearly on the edge of a panic attack the entire way home. He held the strap of his camera bag so tightly that there were small punctures from his sharp nails, and he had been visibly shaking, to the point that the strap over his shoulder was constantly shifting around with his movements.

On the metro, Victor had attempted to calm him by placing a hand on his shoulder. Yuuri had leapt in surprise at this, and he had only just missed smacking his head (or would it have been his antlers?) on the roof of the train.

When they’d gotten to Victor’s apartment building, for the sake of the poor man’s overwhelmed mind, Victor had them take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Yuuri was sitting on the couch now, and he was surveying Victor’s apartment; silent and pensive. He’d relaxed some, his position looser and much less tense. There were many items he wasn’t familiar with in Victor’s apartment, no doubt, but it was quiet, and none of them were turned on, so Yuuri was finally getting a chance to unwind. Makkachin was sitting on his other side, having already warmed up to their guest. When Yuuri had spotted Makkachin, the old dog had bounded over and leapt on top of him almost instantly. Yuuri had laughed, and Victor thought, it was the best sound he’d heard all day. Yuuri was cute, _and_ he loved Victor’s dog? Nice.

He’d since returned to his somber mood, but Makkachin remained next to him, and Victor thought, her presence was helping him.

Victor had given him a glass of water, and after several minutes, he hesitantly sat down on the couch next to him.

“Yuuri?”

“Hmm?” Yuuri raised his head and met Victor’s eyes.

“Are you feeling okay?” Victor bit his lip and idly twisted tapped his fingers together, not even knowing where to begin with the other man.

Yuuri let out a short, sardonic laugh. “I’m better than I was out there, but I’m still…”

“I know,” Victor interrupted. “I’m sorry I even asked. In retrospect, it was a foolish question.”

“It’s fine.” Yuuri sighed and leaned back into the cushions of the couch, his hand resting in Makkachin’s thick, fluffy curls. Victor just nodded and continued to sit there, silently observing his strange visitor.

The corner of Yuuri’s shirt, a kosode, a quick google search Victor had done on his phone had told him, had slid down, and Victor could have sworn he saw something green for a moment, but Yuuri pulled it back up before he could get a good look. Was there something else strange about Yuuri, or was Victor just tired and overwhelmed? He filed that away for later and cleared his throat.

“Are there… really no more youkai, or anything like that?” Yuuri said, before Victor could even decide what he wanted to say, let alone speak.

Victor’s eyes widened, and he blinked in surprise. “Ah, um, not that I know of. Of course, there are superstitious people that still believe they exist, but they don’t…” he let out a short laugh, “or at least I thought they didn’t.”

Yuuri pressed his lips together and crossed his hands in his lap, staring at them as if they were very fascinating. “Where could they have gone though? Youkai… they’re just a part of life. They’re more so a part of mine, of course, but everyone encounters them,” he said.

“They do?”

“Yes. Actually, just a couple of months ago my friend Yuuko-san encountered a nurikabe on the way back from the shrine one night. She managed to outwit it, but---”  Yuuri froze, and his eyes dropped further, his lips curling into a morose frown. “Ah… I guess it was a lot more than a couple of months ago, wasn’t it?”

Victor reached over and hesitantly, placed a sympathetic hand on his arm. “I’m sorry, Yuuri.”

He had been so busy thinking about how big an adjustment this would be for Yuuri because of how different the present era was, that he hadn’t thought about who and what Yuuri had left behind. Perhaps it was because Yuuri had already mentioned that he didn’t have a relationship with his father, but that didn’t preclude him from having a mother, from having friends, from having… perhaps, a significant other. Victor’s heart twinged at that.

“You must have a lot you’ve left behind,” he said, and he grimaced inwardly as Yuuri’s face fell. Why couldn’t he have more _tact_?

Maybe Chris was right. Maybe he needed to get out more, so he at least knew how to interact with other human beings. Or with half dragons, he supposed.

“Not really,” Yuuri replied, surprising Victor. “I have some friends back in my hometown in Hasetsu, but there’s no one else.”

“Oh.” Victor frowned. God he was terrible at this. What could he even say? He quelled the urge to wrap Yuuri in a comforting embrace by reaching over and giving Makkachin a pet. Yuuri followed suit.

“I’ll miss them,” Yuuri said, his voice soft and his eyes shining with something Victor found indefinable. “But… it’s not a big deal. I don’t think they’ll miss me much.”

Victor snapped to attention, pulling away from Makkachin and wrapping his hands around one of Yuuri’s, pulling it up between them. “Yuuri! How could they not miss you? Of course they would.”

Yuuri let a small, sweet, but sad smile cross his lips. “Yuuko-san and Takeshi-san and I all grew up together, and we were really close.” His other hand froze in Makkachin’s fur. “Without Yuuko-san, things would have been so much less exciting. Her father taught me how to read and write, and whenever something was going on in town; like a festival, she would bring me.”

“Then of course they’d miss you!”

Yuuri shook his head. “But they’re married now, and they have a family. Triplets! They’d just turned six when I last saw them.” He smiled at that, and Victor thought he looked proud of his friends and their family. “They’ve grown up and moved on, and here I am, still the same. There’s not a place for me any longer.”

Victor’s blue eyes flew wide. “Yuuri, I’m sure that’s not true.”

He pulled away from Victor’s touch, his eyes welling, and he glanced askance. “It is true. It’s why I went to Edo in the first place, because I had to do something, or I would just… go insane from the want of it.”

“The want of what?”

“A purpose, like Yuuko-san and Takeshi-san found,” he explained. “I didn’t know what it could be; a place, a job, a person even, but I thought, there has to be something out there for me outside of living my life in an old shrine house as the village pariah.”

“Because you’re a… hanyou?” Victor asked, unsure if he was remembering the correct term. Truthfully, Victor had never even heard of hanyou. In the Japanese folklore he was aware of, he’d never come across a half youkai, half human.

Not that he was an expert on Japanese folklore, but he was, in his opinion, fairly learned on the history and mythology of the country he’d settled in. He was both a journalist, which required some knowledge, and a voracious reader.

Yuuri nodded. “It wasn’t that bad. Most people just ignored me, and some would even come to the shrine and worship me.” His lips turned up in a half smile, as if he still found the latter situation funny. “Since my father was a wani, and our village shrine was dedicated to the sea god, they let me live there for fear of inciting his wrath.”

“Oh…”

“And some people worshipped me because they thought because of my birth, I might be connected to him.” Yuuri barked out a laugh at that. “Ridiculous, huh?”

“I suppose so,” Victor replied, his voice low and pensive. It wasn’t that strange that people may think he was connected to the sea gods, if indeed, his father was such a powerful dragon. But Yuuri, he was so clearly filled with contempt toward his father, who he’d already stated he’d never met, that he doubted he could see that.

“Perhaps,” Victor offered, “the youkai have died out? It’s been so long…”

“That doesn’t make any sense!” Yuuri shook his head vehemently. “Powerful youkai live for centuries and centuries.”

“Maybe they’re hiding?” he replied.

“I think that’s much more likely,” Yuuri said. “I wonder if I can find Phichit-kun…”

“Phichit? Is he a youkai?”

Yuuri pulled his hand free of Makkachin and pushed a stray piece of hair behind his ear. “He’s a kinnon, from Siam.”

Ah, so that's another thing that had changed. Victor decided not to bother explaining that his friend’s home country had changed its name to Thailand decades ago. He’d already experienced enough of an information overload.

“Siam? But Japan was closed to other nations back then.”

“There’s no way they wouldn’t let him in. Kinnon are considered sacred in Siam, and they wouldn’t risk that.” Yuuri raised an arm up and crossed two fingers, as if forming a bird. “Plus, Phichit-kun never came by boat. He flew.” Yuuri moved his fingers through the air and landed them on Makkachin.

“He could fly?”

Yuuri nodded. “His lower half looked like a swan, and he could fly not just between countries, but between worlds.” He closed his eyes and sighed, and when he opened them, Victor thought, they were still so sad. “He was so beautiful, like a celestial maiden.”

“And he was your friend?”

“Yes, he came to my village when I was just thirteen. He had been traveling the east, and he needed a place to stay.” Yuuri took a sip of the glass of water Victor had given him, which rested on the coffee table in front of them. “He came and saw me many times throughout the years, and he told me so many stories about the rest of the world. I always wished I could go with him, but at the very least, Phichit-kun was an amazing storyteller.”

Victor allowed himself a small smile, happy that Yuuri was opening up to him so much. He had, to Victor’s estimation, come across as a very closed off person, but perhaps the sheer vulnerability of his current situation was causing him to be less wary of opening up. After all, it’s not as if he had anything to lose.

“You think he could be alive?” Victor asked. “He’d be awfully old…”

Yuuri shook his head. “Not really. Kinnon are so powerful, and he was still very young when we met.”

The idea that there could be a gorgeous Thai half-man, half-bird out there was, even with everything he’d seen already, almost too strange for Victor to believe. But, well, it’s not as if Yuuri would have any reason to lie.

“All right. I’m not sure how to go about it, but we’ll see if we can find him,” Victor said.

At this, Yuuri brightened, for the first time in quite some time. “Thank you!”

Victor went silent for a moment, something niggling at the back of his mind that was both strange and uncomfortable. He glanced idly to his other side and cleared his throat. “Say, ah… Yuuri,” he began, awkwardly. “How old are you exactly?”

Yuuri tapped his chin, as if trying to remember, and that caused Victor’s chest to tighten, because who didn’t know how old they were off the top of their head, unless they’d been around a long time.

“Twenty-three,” he replied. Victor deflated.

“ _Actually_ just twenty-three?”

Yuuri’s brow furrowed. “Yes? What do you mean?”

Before Victor could formulate his reply, Yuuri’s mouth dropped open in an ‘oh’ after a moment, and he let out a brief, but genuine laugh.

“Did you think I was like Phichit-kun?” he asked. Victor nodded dumbly. “No, no, not at all. Hanyou don’t get that privilege. Not even hanyou like me.”

“Like you?” Victor queried. He recalled, back at the shrine, Yuuri saying something about his kind being ‘rare’, and he wondered if he was about to get an explanation for that.

“Most of the time when a youkai and a human have a child, they’re just born as a normal human,” he said. “They live a normal life, and no one is the wiser. Unfortunately, I wasn’t so lucky.” His smile vanished, and he frowned down at his hands, which were gripping the tops of his knees. “I know that others like me have existed, at least a few, but I’ve never met anyone.”

Victor placed a hand on Yuuri’s shoulder and when the other man looked up, he gave him a gentle, encouraging smile. “We don’t need to talk any more tonight. I’m probably not making it much easier… asking all these questions.”

Yuuri’s lips curled up in a small, hesitant smile. “You haven’t asked that many, and actually, it’s nice to have someone to talk to.”

Victor ignored the way his cheeks flushed warm at the sweet way in which Yuuri looked at him. “I’m glad, but is there anything you’d like to do but talk? We can eat something soon.”

“That would be nice,” Yuuri said. “I’d also like umm---” his cheeks pinked, and he turned away from Victor, suddenly finding the floor very interesting, “is there a place I can bathe? Preferably somewhere private instead of communal.”

Victor squeezed his shoulder. “I have a bath here. There’s no need for us to go to a bathhouse. You can have it all to yourself.”

Yuuri let out a sigh of relief at that. “Thank you.”

“Do you want to bathe first or eat first?”

“Bathe,” Yuuri responded, without hesitation. “My skin is starting to feel really itchy.” He reached beneath his kosode and mimicked scratching.

“I understand that,” Victor said. “I always start feeling itchy when I’ve gotten too dirty as well.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened, and his mouth froze in mild surprise. “Oh. It’s not like that. I um---” his cheeks darkened, and he let out a quiet huff. “It’s hard to explain.”

“Okay.” Victor held up his hands. “You can tell me if you want, but you don’t have to.”

“Really?”

“Sure.” Victor shrugged. “You’ve told me a lot already. I don’t want to push you.”

Yuuri toyed with the piece of hair that he’d pushed behind his ear earlier, as it had fallen forward once more. “It’s just really strange.”

Victor chortled. “Yuuri, you just told me you have a friend that has the lower body of a bird. I don’t think much can surprise me now.”

“I guess that’s true,” Yuuri said, and his voice was light, and Victor very much liked the sound of that.

Pushing himself off the couch and into a standing position, Victor gestured behind him toward Yuuri. “Come on, I’ll show you how to use the bath.”

Victor’s bath was a contemporary, modern, Japanese style bathing area. It was still enough to suit his more western sensibilities, with its deep, rectangular porcelain tub that was flush against the wall, yet the shower stood separate, and it was low hanging, to the point that Victor, who was quite tall, tended to use the handheld feature when he decided to shower instead of bathe.

There was a stool beneath the showerhead, and a cypress wood bath mat lay on the floor outside the glass door that led to the shower and bath. Yuuri was standing on it now, eyes wide.

“I have no idea how to use any of this,” he said after a few moments.  

“I’ll show you, don’t worry.” Victor opened the glass door and stepped inside, Yuuri following suit.

Yuuri glanced upward at the showerhead, but Victor motioned him forward. “How hot would you like the water to be?”

“Uh, hot? If it doesn’t take too long to heat it up.”

“Not at all.” Victor reached down and turned on the knobs, watching in amusement as Yuuri’s eyes grew even larger when the water began pouring out. He put his hand underneath the faucet and shot Yuuri a grin. “See, it’s already hot.”

Hesitantly, Yuuri reached forward and put his fingers beneath the water, leaping back in surprise almost immediately. “No! It’s good. I was just… surprised that it really was hot already.”

Victor laughed. “It will take a few minutes to fill up all the way, so you can get undressed in the meantime.” Yuuri nodded. “Do you ah, want me to leave?”

Yuuri bit his lip and frowned. “You don’t need to… yet.” He sat down on the stool and reached for the corner of his kosode, almost pulling it down off his shoulders before hesitating. He took a deep breath and steeled his expression into something much more determined than before. “If I’m going to be using your bath, I guess I need to tell you why.”

Victor shrugged. “Just saying you need to bathe because you’re dirty would have been enough for me.” The bathroom was starting to grow muggy from the heat of the water, and Victor pushed his bangs out of his face to combat it. “Honestly Yuuri, you don’t have to tell me everything.”

Yuuri pulled his hair out of the ponytail, and it fell thick and full onto his shoulders. “I know.”

He reached down and put his hands on Yuuri’s shoulders, and Yuuri started in surprise. “Listen Yuuri I…”

Victor paused, noticing that Yuuri’s cheeks had suddenly flushed bright red. This wasn’t the first time he’d touched his shoulders so why…

Ah. The movement had caused Yuuri’s already loosened kosode to fall off his shoulder on one side and…

Victor sucked in a breath. He _hadn’t_ imagined what he’d seen earlier. There was a smattering of scales on Yuuri’s skin, blue green and almost iridescent, seamlessly blending with the peach of his flesh.

Yuuri’s cheeks darkened, and he rubbed his bare shoulder. “It’s strange, I know. I have to get wet at least once every couple of days or they start drying out and getting itchy and painful.”

“Since your father was from the sea?” Victor managed. Yuuri nodded.

Victor watched as Yuuri deftly, carefully slid his kosode off the rest of the way. It hung around his waist, tucked into his pants, and Victor felt his breath leave his body.

Yuuri sat with his back toward him, his thick, black hair falling over his shoulders, and he turned his head to glance back at Victor, his expression hesitant, and his cheeks still dusted pink.

The scales on Yuuri’s torso had no discernable pattern; they faded in and out of existence, normal, human flesh in their absence. Sporadic and intermittent they may have been, they shone with an almost ethereal glow, and Victor was reminded once again, that this was magic.  

“It’s embarrassing,” Yuuri said, his voice low and soft. “I don’t like people seeing them, but since you already saw them…”

He took a moment to survey the rest of Yuuri; a slender, but muscular torso was hidden beneath his baggy clothing, his arms were worn and strong, and Victor could see calluses on his elbow and, curiously, a long, faded scar that went from his lower bicep to his wrist on his left arm. Past his shoulders, the dash of scales continued to fade in and out, all the way down to his biceps.

“It’s not embarrassing,” Victor finally said, not trusting his voice to be heard over the din of the bathtub faucet. Which speaking of…

He reached over and turned it off, seeing that the tub was adequately full.

Yuuri huffed and untucked his kosode, discarding into onto the floor. “Well, I think it is.” He pulled off the black stirrups he wore (kyahan, the internet had helpfully told Victor) and added them to the pile, leaving Yuuri in just a pair of baggy, calf length pants.

Victor picked up the discarded clothing and hung it over his arms. “Yuuri, please believe me when I say this…” He ran his hand through his bangs again and tried to ignore the heat that was rushing to his face, this time not brought on by the hot water. Yuuri looked up at him, his expression curious but guarded. “But I think you’re beautiful.”

Yuuri’s hands froze where they were, on the waistband of his pants, and his mouth dropped open in shock. He gulped, adam’s apple bobbing, as a flush spread from his cheek, to his shoulders, to his chest. “Y-you really mean that?”

Victor let out a nervous laugh. “When I first saw you… outside the shock of you appearing in a flash of light, it’s the first thing I noticed about you.”

“Even before the…” Yuuri gestured to the top of his head.

Victor smiled warmly. “Yes, even before the antlers.”

At this, Yuuri beamed, and it was wide and bright, and oh were those _dimples_? Victor’s heart ached at the sight of something so lovely as it. “Thank you,” he replied, quiet and sweet. He glanced to the tile floor, and to the filled bathtub, and to a few other places that definitely weren’t Victor. “A-and you as well,” Yuuri managed, his voice rising in timbre as he spoke.

Victor grinned and puffed up his chest, warm and buoyant. “You think I’m pretty?”

Yuuri turned redder, if even possible, and groaned. “Yes! The prettiest Dutchman I’ve ever met.”

Victor threw back his head and laughed.

“Yuuri! How could you? That doesn’t mean much when I’m the only one you’ve met.”  

Playfully, Yuuri smacked Victor’s leg and rolled his eyes. “Get out of here now. The water is going to get cold,” he demanded, and he was still smiling, but now it was cheeky and impish.

“Of course, Yuuri,” Victor drew out the vowels in his name. “Just put your pants outside the door and I can wash them with the rest of my clothes.”

Yuuri’s eyes widened. “No, I can wear them again! I don’t have anything else.”

Victor brought the shirt to his nose and mimicked being disgusted at the smell. “Yuuri, these clothes have not been cleaned for over two hundred years. I’m washing them.”

“But---”

“I’ll leave some of my clothes out for you to change into. They might be a little baggy, but they’ll work for now.”

Yuuri looked hesitant, no doubt, Victor thought, feeling guilty about Victor having to do more for him, but he nodded. “Okay.”

“Just let me know if you need anything, right Yuuri?” Victor said.

Yuuri asserted him that he would, and Victor left him behind, clothes in hand. He smiled when, a few moments later he heard the distinct splash of water that accompanied sliding into the bathtub, and then, a loud sigh of delight that could only have been the result of Yuuri discovering the wonders of modern plumbing.

**Author's Note:**

>  **two jō-** about 8.4 feet/2.56 meters  
>  **tōrō-** a Japanese stone lantern. Comes in many shapes and sizes.  
>  **Edo-** The former name of Tokyo. It was changed to Tokyo in 1868.  
>  **Shinjuku-** More specifically, area two of Shinjuku, Shinjuku Ni-chōme, is the hub of gay subculture in Tokyo. It houses the highest concentration of gay bars in the world.  
>  **Ofuda-** Paper talisman used for purification, exorcism, and wards.  
>  **'You're the first Dutch man I've ever seen'-** From 1633-1853, Japan was under the 'sakoku' (closed country) policy. Nearly all foreigners were prohibited from entering Japan, and Japanese people were forbidden from leaving. Japan had limited trade with the Netherlands, but no other European country was allowed. Dutch trade with Japan was regulated and Dutch citizens were confined to a single trading post, except for occasionally when a delegation of Dutch traders would go to Edo to present gifts and tributes to the shogun. Thus, there's a decent chance Yuuri has never seen a white guy.  
>  **Bunka Thirteen-** The thirteenth year of the Bunka era in the Japanese era calendar scheme; 1816 in the gregorian calendar.  
>  **Hanyou-** You probably know the word hanyou, which literally means half you(kai). This, and half human/half youkai in general, are actually not a traditional piece of Japanese folklore. Although youkai and humans DID have children occasionally in folklore, their offspring tended to be normal humans. So where did this come to be? Believe it or not, the first place a lot of Western fans saw it, which is the manga, _Inuyasha_. Rumiko Takahashi essentially invented the concept and it's been reused and proliferated by others in so many other manga, anime, dramas, etc. since then that it seems pretty normal now. But the idea of a hanyou/half-youkai, a hybrid between human and youkai parents with features of both? Is only twenty-two years old. 
> 
> There are what we would call demigods, though (that being said, these demigods had normal human lifespans). 
> 
> Situations with magical children in Japanese mythology aren't the result of youkai/human unions. Characters like Momotaro have special powers because they were 'gifted them' by the heavens. Kintaro had his powers because he was raised by a mountain witch. Abe no Seimei was born from the union between a human and a youkai, but was born a normal human and only gifted with powers by his kitsune mother at a later point. A child born half youkai half human though, is 'modern folklore'. Interestingly; _Inuyasha_ , _Saiyuki_ , and _Otome Youkai Zakuro_ all play with the idea of hanyou as an analogy for oppression.
> 
> In a nod to actual folklore, in the story's universe most unions between human and youkai do result in 100% human children. Exceptions like Yuuri happen but are very rare. Many people are nervous/scared of Yuuri, whereas others see fit to borderline worship him because they live in a seaside town and they think Yuuri must have a connection to the ocean gods. It's a pretty isolated, unhappy living, but he doesn't suffer large scale targeted discrimination like the hanyou in those series I mentioned.  
> If you want to read a little more on this, **[this post](https://hyakumonogatari.com/2013/05/06/what-are-hanyo/)** is pretty good.  
>  **Wani-** A type of youkai that is a sea dragon. There's a lot of discussion as to the origin of this term, and it's rather interesting. The literal translation of the Chinese characters is 'crocodile', but back when wani came into existence in Japanese language, they'd have had no idea what a crocodile looked like. Thus, it's believed to be a loan word originally used to describe a type of Japanese dragon, and art supports this.  
>  **Nurikabe-** This youkai looks like a wall with a face. If it appears in front of you on a road, there is no way you can get around it or over it. Knocking on the bottom left part of the wall with a stick is the only way to get it to vanish. If you have seen or read any of _GeGeGe no Kitaro_ , one of the members of the Kitaro family is a Nurikabe.  
>  **Kinnon (Thai: กินนร)-** Somewhat explained, but these are creatures that exist in various forms throughout India and Southeast Asia. In Thailand, they are generally women (called 'kinnari', their male counterparts are 'kinnon') who wear an angel like costume and can travel between worlds. Their bottom halves are that of a bird, and they are associated with dance and art.


End file.
